Key 9/11 Suspect To Be Tried In New York

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New photos of alleged 9-11 mastermind may have been spirited out of 'Gitmo'

http://openchannel.msnbc.msn.com/_ne...-of-gitmo?lite

5/25/2012

U.S. military officials are investigating whether new images of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of al-Qaida’s 9-11 terror attacks, posted on a jihadist website were smuggled out of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

The photos, which show a relaxed and often smiling Mohammed, were published Wednesday by "Al-Ebdaa," an jihadist media group, and documented by Flashpoint Partners, a global security company run by NBC News terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann.

Kohlmann said the images appear to have been taken at GTMO, the U.S. Navy base and detention facility in Cuba, where Mohammed is currently facing a military tribunal with four other alleged al-Qaida members on murder and terrorism charges in connection with the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Pentagon officials told NBC News on Thursday that investigators were attempting to determine if the photos were in fact taken at GTMO or had been photo-shopped. If it is determined that they are photos from GTMO, the investigators would attempt to determine how the photos could have left GTMO.

Under GTMO regulations, unauthorized photos of detainees are not permitted to be taken or distributed.

Mohammed and his fellow defendants, who defiantly refused to enter pleas in their initial appearance before the tribunal early this month, face a possible death penalty if they are found guilty of organizing the attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.

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Photo of 9/11 mastermind manipulated: Pentagon

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...ca67f35284.e11

(AFP) – 15 hours ago

WASHINGTON — A photograph of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-confessed architect of the 9/11 attacks, that has recently circulated on the Internet has been digitally manipulated, Pentagon officials said Friday.

The picture, which shows Mohammed with a long bushy gray beard holding an open book and smiling, had raised concerns about both its authenticity and how it came to be smuggled out of the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

US authorities ban the taking and distribution of any non-authorized photos from Guantanamo, where Mohammed and his four co-accused are awaiting trial on charges of killing 2,976 people in the 2001 attacks on the United States.

The photo of the Pakistani suspect was published on an Internet site, Al-Ebdaa, and showed a different visage to the one of Mohammed last seen during his last court appearance on May 5 when his beard appeared to have been dyed red with henna.

"The recent photos of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, et al, that have surfaced on the Internet represent a very poor effort at digital manipulation," Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Todd Breasseale said in an email to AFP.

He said they had been manipulated from authorized pictures by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

The pictures were "clearly using the official work of the ICRC -- approved for release by the US government -- in order to deceive and rally those inclined toward radicalism."

The ICRC is the only organization which is allowed to regularly visit the Guantanamo inmates. Some of its pictures were approved for publication in 2009.

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Next 9/11 Guantanamo hearing postponed to August 8

http://dawn.com/2012/05/30/next-911-...d-to-august-8/

AFP | 11 hours ago

WASHINGTON: The next preliminary hearing for five men accused in the September 11 terror strike on US targets, which was scheduled for June 12, has been postponed to August 8, a Pentagon spokesman said on Tuesday.

Attorneys for two of the accused asked military Judge James Pohl, who is in charge of the case, to push back the hearing on a number of defense appeals to August 8-12, said James Connell, lawyer for Pakistan national Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali. Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Todd Breasseale confirmed the delay.

Confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 47, has been charged along with Ali, his Pakistani nephew, who is also known as Ammar al-Baluchi; Mustapha al-Hawsawi of Saudi Arabia; and Yemenis Ramzi Binalshibh and Walid bin Attash.

The five face the death penalty if convicted for their roles in the terror attacks in which hijacked civilian airliners were used to strike New York, Washington and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing 2,976 people.

The defendants were charged with “conspiracy, attacking civilians, murder and violation of the law of war, destruction, hijacking and terrorism� in connection with the attacks, the most lethal on US soil in modern history.

The 9/11 case marks the second time the United States has tried to prosecute the suspects under the military commissions system, after the proceedings were put on hold as President Barack Obama sought to bring the case to a federal court in New York.

But Obama faced stiff opposition in Congress, where lawmakers prevented his administration from transferring detainees from the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay in southeastern Cuba to the United States. The stalemate also scuttled Obama’s plans to shutter the detention center, where 169 detainees remain.

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Judge sets hearings for Ramadan, 9/11 anniversary
Judge grappling with attorney conflicts postpones the next Sept. 11 pre-trial hearing at Camp Justice for a Wednesday to Sunday in August, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/3...-hearings.html

By CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@miamiherald.com

A military judge overseeing the Sept. 11 conspiracy trial at Guantánamo has set the next hearing in the case for five days during Ramadan, and says the month when Muslim fast during the day is no excuse for a delay.

Army Col. James L. Pohl, the judge, made note of the holy month, in a scheduling order that grappled with the complexities of mounting the joint capital trial of accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four alleged accomplices at the base in southeast Cuba..

He set the hearing for Aug. 8-12, a first ever war court session that would convene on both a Saturday and a Sunday. Members of the five separate defense teams had reported conflicts for June and July.

Pohl also set the subsequent hearing to straddle both a weekend and the 11th anniversary of the terror attacks, Sept. 8-12, in a two-page order unsealed by the Pentagon on Wednesday.

The Pentagon in the past has convened military commissions sessions at Guantánamo during Ramadan, presenting a bit of a logistical challenge to the prison camps’ staff that shuttle the accused several miles across the base from the detention center to the bay-front compound where the trials are held.

During Ramadan, the military has typically upended its schedule to provide meals to the prison camps at night and meet the captives’ religious needs.

Earlier this month, when Pohl presided at the arraignment of the 9/11 accused, on a Saturday, the hearing spanned 13 hours and included three scheduled prayer breaks for the accused. The men unfurled their prison-approved prayer rugs on the floor of the maximum-security courtroom, and worshipped on the spot.

“No defense counsel has raised any concerns� about convening a hearing during Ramadan, the judge wrote in the order, which predicted the month that starts with the sighting of a sliver of a moon would run from July 21 to Aug. 20. Pohl added that he “will not consider any adjustment in its order based on a conflict with Ramadan.�

Military lawyers say courts martial that continue through a weekend are not unusual, particularly in cases convened in the field rather than at U.S. bases that follow more traditional Monday-Friday schedule.

At Guantánamo, where the site of the war court compound is called the Expeditionary Legal Complex, the base and prison camp do reduce the pace of work activity on weekends when concerts by visiting entertainers and beach parties surge.

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9/11 defenders send mixed message on whether to split up Guantánamo trial
Only one of five defense teams argued in favor of splitting off an accused 9/11 conspirator from the joint prosecution of alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. And they represent Mohammed’s nephew.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/0...d-message.html

By CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@miamiherald.com

Defense attorneys are split on whether to break up the joint capital trial of the five Guantánamo prisoners accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks.

Not all five legal teams had filed responses by Judge James L. Pohl’s May 31 deadline to advise him on whether he should split off the prosecution of alleged mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed from any of the other four accused 9/11 conspirators.

But James Connell III, the Pentagon-paid attorney for Mohammed’s nephew, Ammar al Baluchi, said Friday he urged the judge to try the nephew separately.

“Individual justice has been the norm in capital terrorism cases in the United States,� said Connell, who casts his client as a bit player in the government charge sheet and undeserving of a death-penalty prosecution.

Baluchi, 35, allegedly wired money to some of the 9/11 hijackers and helped in some of their U.S.-bound travel.

To bolster his position on separate trials, Connell invoked the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing cases. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were tried separately, he noted, and McVeigh was sentenced to die and executed June 11, 2001 while Nichols is serving a life sentence.

In contrast, defense attorney James Harrington said Thursday his submission to the judge argued “it’s premature� to say whether his client Ramzi bin al Shibh should have a solo trial. Bin al Shibh, 40, allegedly organized the Hamburg cell of Sept. 11 hijackers while four times failing to obtain a U.S. visa and become one.

Pentagon prosecutors don’t want the judge to split up the complex terror prosecution.

They argue that it is “in the interests of justice� that all five should be tried together for the murders of 2,976 people on Sept. 11, 2001. They also attached a copy of a memo signed by all five accused in 2008, two years after they got to Guantánamo from secret CIA custody, in which the accused described the allegations against them as a “badge of honor.�

Lawyers for alleged al Qaida lieutenant Walid bin Attash, 34, wrote that they had insufficient information — notably they hadn’t been furnished case evidence — to take a position on whether to sever.

Lawyers did not file responses for either alleged Saudi money mover Mustafa al Hawsawi nor Mohammed, whose legal teams got extensions until June 8 and June 15 to represent each man’s position.

The defense filings were under seal at the Pentagon on Friday to give U.S. intelligence agencies up to 15 business days to scrub them before release to the public.

The judge on his own, without a request from a defense lawyer, sought all sides opinions on whether to split up the case following the marathon 13-hour arraignment of the five alleged organizers, trainers and funders of the hijackers on May 5. Pohl, an Army colonel, had intended to hold the next 9/11 pre-trial hearing June 12 but was confronted with scheduling conflicts among lawyers on the five separate legal defense teams.

He also questioned whether a joint trial would be a problem if there were a conviction because the same jury decides whether to hand down a death sentence. “It is conceivable that the mitigation evidence for one accused could possibly be considered aggravation evidence for another,� Judge Pohl wrote in his May 17 order to the lawyers to brief him on whether severance is appropriate now.

Prosecutors said it was too soon to address that issue and called severance for that reason an “extraordinary action at this premature point.�

But the prosecutors pointed out that, if all five still sought the “martyrdom� spelled out in their 2008 “badge of honor� memo, it would be “wholly inconsistent� to be arguing over aggravation and mitigation.

The judge now has time to work out whether to split up the trial.

He set the next two pre-trial sessions for Aug. 8-12 and Sept. 8-12, during Ramadan and the 11th anniversary of the terror attacks respectively. The next two sessions also fall during hurricane season, which began June 1, a time when tropical storms but rarely hurricane winds lash Camp Justice, the war court compound at Guantánamo.

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Red Cross to take new photos of Guantanamo detainees

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2012...photos-of.html

Published: June 5, 2012 Updated 38 minutes ago
By Carol Rosenberg — The Miami Herald

The International Committee of the Red Cross is arranging with the Pentagon to take fresh photos later this year of the captives at Guantánamo for their families.

The development comes as old Red Cross photographs of the alleged 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, are circulating anew on Islamist websites — renewing attention on the program that permitted Guantánamo captives to pose in traditional garb for family members who hadn’t seen them for a decade or more.

Now, U.S. Navy Rear Adm. David Woods disclosed the ongoing discussions in a letter to some Guantánamo defense lawyers included in a court filing in the USS Cole bombing case.

Woods predicted that the international agency that visits prisoners and their families around the globe would be allowed to take fresh photography in October, three years after a Red Cross photographer was allowed to make the last batch of portraits.

In Washington, ICRC spokesman Simon Schorno said the new photography later this year is “something we intend to do.�

Only photos with “the expressed approval of the U.S. authorities� are allowed to leave the Navy base, Schorno added.

The disclosure came up in the Cole case because defense lawyers want to show the alleged architect, their client, Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, a video they made with his parents via Skype from Saudi Arabia. In it, they send “greetings, blessings and expressions of love that one would normally expect parents to convey to a distant child,� his lawyers write.

Also, the lawyers want to take a still photograph of Nashiri to send to his parents, and to show potential witnesses in preparation for the trial that is expected to start next year.

Woods refused both requests.

The admiral said that the Saudi-born Nashiri refused to sit for his Red Cross portrait in 2009, the last time it was offered. Woods told the lawyers to “encourage� their client to participate in the next round, in October.

Seventeen U.S. sailors were killed in al Qaida’s October 2000 suicide bombing of the warship, and the Pentagon says Nashiri was the architect of the attack and is seeking his execution.

Now Nashiri’s lawyers are asking the chief war court judge, Army Col. James L. Pohl, to let them both take the photograph and show the video during recesses at the next Cole pre-trial hearing, next month.

“The accused ’s family has not seen him in anything other than a sketch format for many years as a result of his detention with the CIA — where he was tortured — and his subsequent detention in Guantánamo,� the lawyers write.

U.S. forces captured Nashiri in the United Arab Emirates in 2002 and interrogated him overseas in the CIA’s secret prison network, out of reach of the Red Cross.

While held, according to declassified reports, he was interrogated with waterboarding, at the point of a pistol and revving drill, to get him to spill al Qaida secrets. President George W. Bush had him moved to the U.S. Navy outpost in Cuba in September 2006, for the trial by military commission.

Woods controls what goes on at the detention and interrogation center, where Nashiri is held in a secret lock-up for ex-CIA captives called Camp 7.

Pohl has sovereignty over the court compound, called Camp Justice, while hearings are under way.

At the Pentagon, Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, a spokesman, would not confirm Woods’ remarks about the ongoing talks for new detainee portraits.

But Breasseale said a brief brouhaha over whether unauthorized photos had been smuggled from the prison camps was resolved last month when the military concluded that what appeared to be fresh photos of the alleged 9/11 mastermind were actually old, approved Red Cross images. Some had apparently been altered, he said.

The photography fits in with the Red Cross priority of “re-establishing and maintaining family links between detainees held at Guantanamo and their families,� the Red Cross’ Schorno said in Washington.

A Red Cross delegate with official access to Guantánamo took the last batch, permitting each detainee to don traditional attire, if he chose, rather than the Pentagon-issued prison camps uniforms. From those, the captive was allowed to select which images he wanted sent to his family member with a Red Cross message, each of which was subjected to censorship by the U.S. military.

The portraits are “not meant to be used in the public realms,� said Schorno. “However, the ICRC is not in a position to control their usage after they have been received by the families of the detainees.�

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AG Holder considered quitting over 9/11 trial

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/0...-quitting.html

By Seth Stern
Bloomberg News

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder considered resigning in 2010 after facing criticism for his decision to prosecute terror suspects in civilian court, according to a book being published Tuesday.

Holder “sank into a depression� following the death of his mother and a public backlash against his plans to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, in federal court in New York, according to “Kill or Capture: The War on Terror and the Soul of the Obama Presidency� by Daniel Klaidman, a reporter for Newsweek and the Daily Beast.

The Obama administration subsequently abandoned Holder’s plan to try Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators in civilian court. Instead, the attorney general announced in April 2011 that the 9/11 cases would return to the military commission at the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where they it is currently being prosecuted..

“Holder’s sense of isolation within the administration had turned his job into a grind,� according to the book. “He woke up on many mornings with a knot in his stomach, not sure if he’d be able to make it through the day.�

Holder enjoyed a close personal relationship with President Barack Obama even as he clashed with Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and White House political adviser David Axelrod over his handling of terror detainees and speeches early in the administration on gun control and race relations, according to the book.

Holder ultimately decided to stay at the urging of presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett, who told him that if he quit, “this will not be good for you and it will not be good for your friend, the president,� according to the book.

Tracy Schmaler, a Justice Department spokeswoman, didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail requesting comment.

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9/11 mastermind wants a uniform for Gitmo trial
The accused terrorist asks for a camouflage field jacket, camouflage turban with traditional Pakistani clothing.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/world/5...itary.html.csp

By BEN FOX
The Associated Press
6/13/2012

San Juan, Puerto Rico • The man who has called himself the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks is seeking to wear military-style clothing at his upcoming war crimes trial in Guantanamo, one of his attorneys said Wednesday.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has asked to wear a camouflage field jacket and camouflage turban with traditional Pakistani clothing as he goes on trial with four other men at the U.S. base in Cuba on charges that include murder and terrorism.

Mohammed wanted to wear the items at his May 5 arraignment but prison officials refused to allow it. They also rejected some clothing requested by other defendants as inappropriate for the military tribunal.

But his defense team is asking the judge to overrule that decision, arguing in newly released court papers that Mohammed is seeking to wear items customarily worn by members of a militia and that it violates his right to a fair trial and historical precedent by forbidding him to do so.

"He’s being prosecuted for violating the laws of war in the context of hostilities," said Army Capt. Jason Wright, a member of Mohammed’s Pentagon-appointed defense team. "War crimes defendants during the Tokyo and Nuremberg tribunals apparently had a right to wear military-style clothing, and it’s unlikely that the U.S. had a problem about Mr. Mohammad’s particular clothing when he was part of the U.S.-backed mujahadeen in Afghanistan who fought the Soviets."

The defense also argues that denying him the right to wear the clothing of his choice is attempt to break him down psychologically, a continuation of the harsh interrogation, including being waterboarded 183 times, that he endured in the CIA’s clandestine prison system before he was brought to Guantanamo in September 2006.

"This appears to be another attempt by the U.S. government to continue one of the aims of the CIA’s now-condemned torture program as an attempt to psychologically disintegrate these so-called enemy prisoners from their individual and social personalities," Wright said in an interview.

Mohammed and his four co-defendants could receive the death penalty if convicted of charges that include nearly 3,000 counts of murder for their alleged roles orchestrating and aiding the Sept. 11 attacks. Mohammed has previously stated he was the "mastermind" of the attacks and indicated he would plead guilty but he and his co-defendants have not yet entered pleas in the case.

Their May arraignment dragged on for nearly 13 hours as the men refused to respond to questions from the judge and wouldn’t listen to Arabic translations in a protest that seems to have been sparked by the military’s refusal to allow the clothing of their choice.

Defendant Walid bin Attash, who also wanted to wear a camouflage field jacket, was placed in a restraint chair at the start of the hearing. Another of the men, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, had sought to appear in an orange jumpsuit similar to those worn by the first prisoners who were brought to Guantanamo and which are now often worn by protesters around the world at demonstrations calling for the closure of the prison.

"Mr. Hawsawi wished to wear the orange prisoner jumpsuit as a silent reminder of Guantanamo’s legacy of torture and in peaceful defiance of a system that is built to kill," said his lawyer, Navy Cmdr. Walter Ruiz.

In a legal motion released Tuesday, prosecutors ask the judge in the case not to overrule the prison camp officials who deemed the clothing items unsuitable for sessions of the court, known as a military commission.

"The detainee’s attire should not transform this commission into a vehicle for propaganda and undermine the atmosphere that is conducive to calm and detached deliberation and determination of the issues presented and that reflects the seriousness of the proceedings," the prosecutors wrote.

The detention center commander, Rear Adm. David B. Woods says in an affidavit accompanying the motion that he forbids "excessive clothing" for security reasons because it could allow prisoners to hide contraband more easily or make it harder for the guards to gain control if necessary.

Woods also says the prison forbids "clothing that is inconsistent with the decorum and dignity of a court proceeding whether in the United States or the Middle East, and which could undermine good order and discipline."

Lawyers for the defendants say that camouflage should not conflict with the decorum of the court since guards inside the courtroom and prison officials wear military fatigues.

The judge is expected to hold a hearing on the clothing issue at the next court session, scheduled for August.

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What not to wear — Guantánamo edition
Newly unsealed documents reveal details of a dispute over what the men accused of planning the 9/11 attacks wanted to wear to the war court last month.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/1...uantanamo.html

By CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@miamiherald.com

Accused 9/11mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed wanted to wear paramilitary-style woodland-patterned camouflage clothing to court.

His nephew wanted to sport the same cap he used to pose for a Red Cross photo.

A series of documents unsealed at the Pentagon this week reveal a source of tension at the May 5 arraignment of the Sept. 11 accused at Guantánamo — the men sought to wear what the prison camps commander considered alternately unsafe, culturally inappropriate or disruptive attire. And he forbade it.

Now, lawyers for the five men who face a death-penalty trial are appealing to the chief military commissions judge to stop the camps commander, Rear Adm. David B. Woods, from interfering with their clients’ court wardrobe.

The challenge to the authority of Woods, who runs the camps that houses 169 prisoners, is the latest in a series by defense attorneys who argue that the career Navy officer, whose speciality is intelligence jamming, has interfered with the court process by having his forces go through the captives’ attorney-client mail. Woods, who will be replaced at the U.S. Navy base later this month, has countered that security is paramount.

Now, in an affidavit, the admiral explains how he and the colonel in charge of the prison camp guard force went through the accused’s proposed wardrobe — provided by their Pentagon attorneys, most uniformed officers — and rejected everything but the white gowns and prison camp uniforms that they wore to court for the unusual Saturday arraignment.

As a result, the most traditionally clad person in court was a secular attorney — Cheryl Bormann from Chicago — who donned a black abaya, a shapeless headscarf and gown that covered her hair and left only her face exposed.

Bormann, paid by the Pentagon to defend accused al Qaida deputy Walid bin Attash, said she was respecting her client’s Muslim sensibilities and at one point scolded women on the Pentagon prosecution team to watch their hemlines.

The hearing spanned 13 hours and began with attorneys bitterly complaining that the five men accused of organizing, training and funding the Sept. 11 hijackings were refused their choice of attire.

In the instance of the alleged mastermind, Woods wrote, Mohammed’s lawyer presented a jacket, hunting vest and fabric for a proposed turban all made of “woodlands camouflage print� — shown with a label calling it a “Ranger’s Vest� in a court document. Woods said he forbade it because of “security and good order and discipline concerns, and because they were inappropriate courtroom attire.�

War crimes defendants at World War II tribunals at Tokyo and Nuremberg were able to wear military-style clothing to their trials, said Mohammed’s attorney, Army Capt. Jason Wright. Mohammed sought to wear “militia-style� clothing in the Laws of Armed Conflict sense of the term, as a paramilitary organization.

Two of the accused sought to wear traditional Afghan caps and vests — no camouflage, purchased at a Virginia shop called Halalco that specializes in Muslim products. And in each instance Woods rejected that choice of attire because “such vests are traditionally only worn during the winter or in colder climates.�

James Connell III, the attorney for Mohammed’s nephew, known as Ammar al Baluchi, said the cap that his client wasn’t allowed to wear to court was the same as the one he wore to pose for photographs that were taken by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Those photos have turned up on websites sympathetic to al Qaida. Neither contained any messages, he said, describing Baluchi’s proposed wardrobe as “banal.�

All five of the men who got to Guantánamo in 2006 from CIA custody were allowed to wear their skullcaps to court, Woods said in the affidavit, “in recognition of their cultural and religious significance.�

And they were allowed to bring their prayer rugs with them, unfurling them inside the maximum-security courtroom during breaks.

But Woods wrote he was forbidding “clothing that is inconsistent with the decorum and dignity of a court proceeding whether in the United States or the Middle East.�

Plus, no vests allowed. Or anything with pockets, “a potential means of removing unauthorized items from the courtroom.�

“Excessive clothing could potentially complicate the guards’ ability to gain control of a detainee.�

Guards brought four of the Sept. 11 defendants to court unshackled. Bin Attash was brought in a restraint chair like those once used for forced feedings of prisoners, with his prosthetic leg detached due to an unspecific episode prior to the hearing. Eventually he was freed.

Bin Attash lost a leg in fighting in Afghanistan before the Sept. 11 attacks and also planned to dress paramilitary style for court. His lawyers got him a “foul-weather jacket of the Desert Camouflage Uniform print,� similar to those warn by U.S. Coast Guard members at the war court, according to Woods’ affidavit. “It was not culturally appropriate courtroom clothing,� Woods said.

Woods spokesman did not immediately respond Wednesday to a request for comment, including whether the admiral consulted with the judge, an Army colonel, on what would constitute “culturally appropriate clothing� in his court.

At the May 5 hearing, the judge, Army Col. James L. Pohl, said he was willing to take up the issue. “The rule is they are entitled to wear appropriate non-prison garb attire,� Pohl said, adding that if Woods made “some arbitrary and capricious decision on that, let me know about it and I will revisit it.�

The motion seeks to do just that. It argues that the men are still suffering from their treatment in CIA custody — Mohammed was water boarded 183 times — and that Woods’ “arbitrary, unpredictable and standardless denial of the detainees’ right to wear appropriate clothing� to court “replicated the psychologically disruptive nature of the CIA procedures.�

Also, they argue that Woods is prejudicing the case against them by forbidding them “to wear items of clothing customarily worn by belligerents within the context of hostilities under the laws of armed conflict reverses the presumption of innocence.� Mohammed is the self-described former chief of operations of al Qaida and has called himself a revolutionary just like George Washington.

At the prison camps they are held as the enemy. But at the war court they are afforded a presumption of innocence, according to the Pentagon, one reason why earlier judges have urged defendants not to wear their prison camps uniform to court. But one of the accused, Saudi Mustafa al Hawsawi, wanted to wear an orange jumpsuit to court, which Woods forbade, citing “institutional and security concerns.�

Only certain captives are kept in orange jumpsuits, the admiral wrote, and Hawsawi is not among them.

But orange jumpsuits have been seen at the war court before: Afghan teen Mohammed Jawad, since released after a federal judge ruled him unlawfully detained, was arraigned in March 2008 in an orange jumpsuit and ankle shackles, demonstrating he was uncooperative with his captors. And two years earlier Binyam Mohamed donned a traditional Pakistani tunic and trousers, a shalwar khameez, that his lawyer had had dyed jumpsuit orange in London for his arraignment. Mohamed has since been released to live in Britain, and cleared of all charges.

Hawsawi’s attorney, Navy Cmdr. Walter Ruiz, said the Saudi wanted to wear the orange jumpsuit because it “more accurately reflects his status as a political prisoner in relation to war hostilities rather than the softer and less accurate ‘detainee.’� It was provided, he said, by a founder of the Code Pink anti-war group, Medea Benjamin.

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KSM Response On Separate Trials in the 9/11 Case

http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/06/k...-the-911-case/

By Wells Bennett
Sunday, June 24, 2012 at 11:36 AM

The Department of Defense has unsealed Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s response to Judge Pohl’s show cause order – in which the commission had asked the government to explain why the 9/11 defendants should not be tried separately. (At the moment, the case is proceeding on a joint basis, with all five accused to face trial together.) The case’s best known defendant says he neither opposes nor supports severance.

Thus far only one defendant’s response, from Ammar al-Baluchi (aka Ali Abdul Aziz Ali), specifically had asked for a separate trial. As support for the request, he cited his plan to demonstrate a lesser level of culpability relative to the four other accused coconspirators. By contrast, attorneys for three other defendants took no position on the severance issue, arguing among other things that impingements on the attorney-client relationship and their inability thus far to review information in the prosecution’s possession together precluded them from doing so.

Now Mohammed, better known as “KSM,� has followed this latter approach – while making a few unique points of his own. According to his lawyers’ filing, the “Defense is unable to make an informed and competent response to the Prosecution’s Response, and otherwise to address the primary concerns raised by the Commission in its Show Cause Order.� KSM therefore specifically asks the Commission to delay resolution of the severance matter until the defense can review information necessary to formulate a position.

His attorneys also highlighted a few specific obstacles to such a review. Their mitigation expert’s application for a security clearance remains pending, despite having been filed in September of 2011. The delay by definition has precluded the expert from reviewing any classified materials furnished in the prior military commission case against the 9/11 defendants. (KSM’s attorneys also note that they do not yet have access to discovery materials – classified and unclassified – in the pending commission case.) And because of onerous JTF-GTMO rules, Mohammed’s lawyers “may not bring into client meetings relevant news articles on potential mitigation themes for discussion and exploration without waiving the attorney client privilege,� and also cannot show Judge Pohl’s show cause order and the government’s response to Mohammed. Instead, the lawyers say, the must memorize these materials, apparently in order to summarize them for Mohammed orally.